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30 Apr 2008 : Column 518W—continued

	2005			2006
Area( 1)	Number of cases( 2)	In one hearing( 3) (%)	Margin of error( 4) (+/- %)	Number of cases( 2)	In one hearing( 3)(%)	Margin of error( 4) (+/- %)
Avon and Somerset
Bath and Wansdyke	2,138	40	8	1,915	34	7
Bristol	6,609	31	5	6,219	29	4
North Avon	2,612	39	8	2,342	26	9
South Somerset	1,203	26	11	1,117	46	10
Taunton Deane	2,518	34	7	2,192	31	7
Woodspring	1,984	41	10	1,766	31	9
Total	17,064	35	3	15,551	32	3
Devon and Cornwall
Central Devon	3,303	52	7	2,670	49	8
East Cornwall	1,876	56	8	1,992	50	9
North Devon	1,385	38	10	1,346	43	10
Plymouth District	3,513	30	6	3,191	35	7
South Devon	3,120	29	8	2,720	43	8
West Cornwall	1,923	41	8	1,847	48	9
Total	15,120	41	3	13,766	44	3
Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
Gloucestershire	6,338	34	5	6,427	42	5
North West Wiltshire	2,345	40	11	2,274	42	8
Poole	7,163	43	4	7,130	35	4
Salisbury	1,619	52	9	1,466	39	12
Swindon	2,539	42	8	2,217	42	8
Total	20,004	41	3	19,514	39	3
Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight	2,100	48	12	1,823	43	9
North East Hampshire	6,275	48	6	5,597	47	6
South East Hampshire	8,281	31	4	7,018	40	5
Southampton	7,547	38	4	7,406	39	4
Total	24,203	38	3	21,844	41	3
South West Region total	76,391	39	1	70,675	39	1
(1) Local data are presented at clerkship level, clerkships being clusters of one or more courts grouped for administrative purposes. Area and region groupings are those used by Her Majesty's Court Service (HMCS). (2) Number of cases arising from apprehensions (equivalent to charged cases) taken from MOJ Court Proceedings Database (CPD). (3) Estimated proportion based on one sample week of charged cases (summons are excluded from these figures) in March, June, September and December. The Time Intervals Survey (TIS) collects the number of hearings for completed criminal cases in magistrates1 courts. More information on TIS is available on the Ministry of Justice website. (4) The margin of error is a measure of the precision of a result based on a sample survey. Number of hearings in magistrates court cases are measured using data from a sample of the total number of defendants. The sample provides one estimate of the average number of hearings and different samples would produce different averages. The true value is likely to fall within the range of the sample result +/- the margin of error. Source: Time Intervals Survey and Court Proceedings Database, MOJ

Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission

Greg Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what payments the Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission made to Weber Shandwick Public Affairs in each of the last five years; and on what date each payment was made. [202258]

Mr. Hanson: The payments made by the Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission to “Weber Shandwick Worldwide—Belfast” in each of the last five years is set out in the following table.

30 Apr 2008 : Column 519W

Date paid	£
31 May 2007	4,935.00
31 July 2007	4,935.00
31 July 2007	4,935.00
14 August 2007	4,935.00
18 September 2007	4,935.00
16 October 2007	4,935.00
12 November 2007	533.80
14 January 2008	9,870.00
31 January 2008	4,935.00
Total	44,948.80

Prisoners: Voting Rights

Peter Bottomley: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he plans to issue his response to the consultation “Voting rights of convicted prisoners detained within the United Kingdom—The UK Government's response to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the case of Hirst v. The United Kingdom”; and if he will make a statement. [202145]

Bridget Prentice: The Government are currently considering how to take forward the implementation of the Hirst judgment in light of the first stage consultation on this issue and will publish the responses in due course. We also remain committed to carrying out a second, more detailed public consultation on how voting rights might be granted to serving prisoners, and how far those rights should be extended. This is a sensitive and complex issue and we need to look very carefully at what the right approach should be.

Prisoners: Wales

Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many women born in Wales were serving custodial sentences at the latest date for which figures are available, broken down by (a) prison and (b) length of sentence. [201333]

Maria Eagle: Information on prisoner’s country of birth is not routinely collected and could be provided only by manual survey of prisoners in England and Wales.

However as at 31 March 2008 there were 160 sentenced female prisoners with a home address in Wales (or committal court in Wales where no home address was listed).

This figure is drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

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